


Fate

by chronicAngel



Series: Leaves in the Summer [44]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Late Night Conversations, POV Third Person, Pregnancy, SasuSaku Month 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2019-01-28 20:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12614912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "Do you think, maybe, it's fate?"SasuSaku Month 2017 Day 15: The Slug and The Snake





	Fate

She leans against her husband, staring at a painting of a forest on the wall of the inn they are currently staying at. Her mind drifts to the forest of Lady Katsuyu, to her training with Lady Tsunade in the Shikkotsu Forest, and she wonders if some day it might be possible to take her future child there. Sasuke's hand rests on the swell of her stomach, though it isn't very large yet, and she wonders how long it will be before she feels the first flutters of life there; before he feels them, too.

She thinks of the stories that Lady Tsunade told her while they were training, and her lips quirk up into a small smile. She sets her book aside, though she hasn't really been reading it for a while, and wonders aloud, "Do you think it's destiny?"

"Hm?" The sound is only barely different than his usual hummed answers, but it is distinctly a question.

"Do you think, maybe, it's fate?"

He looks thoughtful for a minute, confused, and she rushes to clarify. "Tsunade-sama told me stories during our training of when she was young... Not just of her, but of Jiraiya and... and Orochimaru," she adds him tentatively, watching Sasuke to gauge his reaction, and rushing forward when he seems to be paying attention, but not upset. "But she always spoke fondly of him... Like he was a different person. It sorta reminded me of the way she spoke of Dan, when it didn't hurt too much for her to speak of."

She stares at the picture of the forest again, memory flashing to a specific story: _"Tsunade-sama, can we take a break?" She tries to pose it as a question and not a request bordering on a plea, but she thinks the heaving of her chest as she pants and stares at the calluses on her fingers probably gives it away. Tsunade says nothing, but nods to her and sits, leaning back against a tree. Sakura follows suit, and sits beside her with familiarity as opposed to sitting across from her in formality as she did only months before. Tsunade is the Hokage and her teacher, but Sakura still considers her to be a friend, and one that is incredibly dear to her at that. Of course, she would have to be, if Sakura was willing to train with her to summon a giant slug._

_"He wasn't always a monster, you know..." Tsunade's words are sudden, and it takes Sakura a minute to figure out what exactly she means, who exactly she is referring to, before she settles on the only possible option: Orochimaru is the only man she has known Tsunade-sama to refer to as a monster, though her eyes always reflect such pain when she does. She hums in acknowledgement and waits for her shishou to continue on her own, not sure if she even plans to. Sometimes, Lady Tsunade will begin stories and never give them an end. Sakura will occasionally spend days piecing it out on her own, spend sleepless nights wondering how the tales end._

_"Sometimes, it's difficult to look at the man he is now and associate that with the sixteen-year-old who was always goading Jiraiya on." Her eyes contain fondness, and her face has laugh lines that Sakura never gets to see anymore. "I remember one year, we went out for his birthday, to this neat little restaurant tucked away in one corner of the village, a few blocks away from Jiraiya's apartment. The dope had mentioned it at training a few weeks earlier, never too subtle, and of course we'd planned to take Orochimaru there for his birthday to surprise him, like we tried to do every year. I don't think he was ever actually surprised; he certainly never acted like it. But there were moments at those dinners, during the team gatherings when we would all get together just to celebrate the fact that all of us were still alive, where he would look at the two of us, and he would really seem like a real person," she breathes the last bit, and Sakura watches her with a hesitant fascination._

She looks at her husband now, and smiles; she has similar memories, of days when Naruto managed to rope the three of them into meeting at Ichiraku for dinner after long days of training. She remembers the way that Tsunade's stories about Orochimaru used to reassure her, in an odd way; she suspects if she told them to anyone else, they would be horrified at the way that a man who was once so normal could become so sick, but she always thought it was nice to have reassurance that the man who seemed so inhumane was just as human as the rest of them. Or at least, he was, once.

"Orochimaru was never one for telling stories," he says simply, and she snorts.

"That's not really what I was asking, Sasuke-kun." She grins at him and he raises a brow, so she continues, "I mean, the three of them-- Tsunade-sama, Orochimaru, and Jiraiya, the Legendary Sannin-- they were just like us once, weren't they? Aloof, genius Orochimaru and Jiraiya always baiting him, and then there was Tsunade, trapped between the two of them." Privately, she doubts that Lady Tsunade was ever as utterly useless as she once was.

"They were," he concedes, watching her closely. She knows from a history with him that he's more interested in what she's saying than he seems, and she leans her head against his shoulder.

"So I've been thinking about it, I suppose. We all trained under them, the Sannin who were once just like us. And just like us, they were human. Jiraiya and Orochimaru may not have beat each other up physically like you and Naruto used to, but they still had that sort of rivalry, huh? And Orochimaru and Tsunade... Maybe I don't know exactly what happened, but I can tell it was _something._ So we trained under the Sannin, under these human beings who were such total reflections of ourselves, once, and we became like the next generation of them, yeah? Naruto is the toad, and you're the snake, and I'm the slug. The toad and the snake are rivals. The snake and the slug are lovers. Do you think it's fate?" She pauses, craning her neck to look at him, "Or do you think it's all just a coincidence?"

She's not sure he hears her last point, though, because his nose is crinkling in that way it used to when Naruto did something particularly stupid or reckless, and it almost makes her snort. He looks like he's twelve again, and she honestly thinks it's adorable, but she values her life too much to say anything about it (but he would never kill her, not really). "You're not a slug." She's prepared to just leave it there, sighing contentedly and deciding that's all she needs. She picks her book up again and leans against her husband, until, after almost two minutes of silence, he finally speaks up again.

"I suppose it could be."


End file.
